Broken Glass and a Broken Heart
by Beauty-is-but-a-Face
Summary: Dark one-fic, post-war on what happens when the depressed, self harming Hermione Granger finds out her husband, Harry Potter, is cheating on her.    includes suicide/character death and self harm   Rated M to be safe


Broken Glass

~.~.~.~.

'I hate you!' screamed Hermione. 'You two faced, lying, cheating bastard!'

She glared at her husband, Harry Potter, and the woman beside him. He was the one she had trusted with everything! Her life! Her heart! Her sanity!

She had told him what she had told only her therapists before. She told him about her mental breakdowns and depression. She had been a wreck post-war. He had taken it in his stride and loved her.

She married him at twenty-four and the happiness he caused kept her feelings in check… until the accident.

The accident wasn't when she had been hit by a car and had to go through all the following surgery and hospitalization. When, because of it, her depression hit her again.

She broke all the time, sometimes screaming and sometimes sobbing. She hated her life at times but he was there.

Through all that she was scared he would leave. Even more scared he would stop loving her.

But he had still loved her.

'Darling,' he had said, 'do you think that we should try to have a child?' They had both thought about it long and hard. A child, he was convinced, would take her mind out of the dark place it inhabited.

She had agreed.

Before they started trying, however, Hermione began suffering more severe depression then she had ever suffered before. He had taken her to a specialist and she started taking medicines.

Through all that she was scared he would leave. Even more scared he would stop loving her.

But he had still loved her.

She had mentioned that she wanted a child to her doctor. He had recommended that she should permit him to give her a medical scan to see if she would pass on any of this to her child.

It wouldn't affect her child they said. But something else turned up.

She remembered the day, the hour, the second that the doctor said the words, 'it isn't possible for you to have a baby. You physically can't. It's something in your chemical make-up.' He tried explaining more but she broke down.

That was the day she had screamed for hours.

Through all that she was scared he would leave. Even more scared he would stop loving her.

And he did.

She didn't realize he had left her, that she had disappeared from his heart, until he brought home Ginevra Weasley.

'Hermione,' he tried to explain, 'it just isn't working.' Hermione noticed the premature wrinkles from frowning, the unhappy set of his mouth and the hopelessness in his eyes.

She noticed how when he turned to Sophie all that disappeared. 'Get out of my house!' she screamed, 'Out, out, OUT!' He looked worried again, as he should.

'Hermione, I can't leave you in this state – you might hurt yourself.' He tried to reason, 'I love you, 'Mione, but not as a wife or a lover, as a sister.' That stupid pet name broke her, completely.

She followed her own advice and ran. She left the house and ran into the night. She ran until her stitch grew too big and she stopped, panting. She knelt down and whimpered as she scratched herself on some broken glass.

She picked up the shard and stroked the sharp edge. Her heart felt like broken glass and the stitch in her ribs did too. She moaned as her head began to pound and she stroked her finger more firmly over the jagged edge.

It cut her soft fingertips and she cried again. All this pain was caused by something outside her control. All of it. Except… except her fingertips.

She ran the broken glass over her wrist and staring at the blood she made a decision. She loved her husband and would do anything for him. She was blocking him from marrying again through his worry for her.

And he was right. She loved him but not in a lover kind of way. That had died when the doctor had uttered those fateful words.

She stumbled back to the house and ignoring her husband's exclamations for her knee was really starting to gush blood.

She went into the storing cupboard and locked herself in. She spelled the door so he couldn't break it open with his wand. He yelled at her through the door, panicked, trying to break it. 'I love you, my brother.' She told him, hoarsely. 'I wish you and Ginny the best of luck.'

He was ringing the Suicide helpline and ambulances. He was ringing Saint Mungo's and the Order. She smiled, they would be too late and she had made her choice. 'Don't do it!' he was begging her. She reached for a bottle of cleaning chemicals and read the label – bleach. Been as quick as she could she undid the lid and drank around a liter.

It destroyed her sensory pallet before she could taste it. It burnt and she cried and screamed. It ate its way through her insides and mixed with the acids in her stomach.

It took nearly an hour. The ambulance arrived and helicopters flew her to a hospital but it was too late.

They arrived and managed to get her out of the cupboard.

They tried to make her vomit and forced gallons of water down her throat but it was too late.

They recognized defeat near the end and fed her a potion to stop her heart and end the pain.

And her heart stopped beating.


End file.
